Cash notes being counted. The corporate bond market continued cooling down in October with total bonds sold worth US$409 million, down 12.8 per cent monthly. — Photo laodong.vn

HÀ NỘI — The value of corporate bonds issued in October was VNĐ9.5 trillion (US$409 million), down 12.8 per cent from September, according to the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX).

Compared to August, the figure was down 84 per cent.

Creditors remained the biggest issuers as the value of their sold bonds was VNĐ3.7 trillion, accounting for nearly 39 per cent of the total figure.

Real estate firms ranked second with VNĐ3.07 trillion worth of corporate bonds sold to investors in September, which accounted for 32.3 per cent of the total.

Services and construction companies issued VNĐ226 billion and VNĐ300 billion worth of bonds in September, respectively.

Their figures accounted for 2.4 per cent and 3.2 per cent of the market’s total, respectively.

In October, 20 companies organised 90 bond auctions. The average term of the bonds was 5.47 years.

Bonds sold by lenders had the highest average annual yield rate of 6.08 per cent, followed by construction companies (5.33 per cent), property developers (4.61 per cent), and services suppliers (2.69 per cent).

The northern market regulator said that the market continued cooling down in October since Decree 81/2020/NĐ-CP took effect on September 1 to tighten the corporate bond market in order to protect investors that are vulnerable to risks and make the market more transparent.

Realty bonds as bad debts

According to the HCM City Real Estate Association (HoREA), outstanding loans for real estate companies in HCM City increased by 5.9 per cent in 10 months to VNĐ293.8 trillion in October.

The figure was equal to 12 per cent of the total outstanding loans for all sectors in the southern hub city, which rose 5.5 per cent in 10 months to VNĐ2.42 quadrillion in October.

About 2.7 per cent of outstanding loans for real estate projects were considered bad debts, according to HoREA.

The Vietnamese economy continued progressing in the first nine months at a pace of 2.12 per cent, inflation was controlled well and the consumer price index (CPI) rose only 3.71 per cent.

Those factors mean the bad-debt ratio in the real estate sector remains under control, HoREA said.

“But a large amount of loans made to real estate firms, including bond purchases by both institutional and individual investors, may turn to non-performing loans,” the association warned.

The regulators should pay attention to consumer lending, especially when some people borrow money to buy properties instead of building and repairing their houses as contracted, HoREA said.

Those loans may account for 1.7 per cent of the total real estate loans and such loans require stricter supervision from the authorities, the association added.

Property developers made big bond issuances in January-August but the sector cooled down in September and October due to Decree 81/2020/NĐ-CP.

It should be noted that the number of individual investors accounts for 20 per cent of all investors while bond purchases by banking institutions occupy a majority of the total figure, HoREA said.

Those underline potential risks for investors, issuers and financial companies when the bonds come to maturity, the association said.

There needs to be an independent rating agency to evaluate the bond issuers, thus making the market more transparent and better protecting the investors, HoREA said. — VNS